Page 15 of Hideaway Whirlwind
And just likethat, my excitement plummets when Elliott’s truck starts backsliding when he tries to crest a small hill right before we get to the Berenson Trucking warehouse. I grab Elliott’s arm with a muted shriek, panic rising that we’re going to get in an accident, and the kids scream.
“Buckle yourself in,” Elliott demands for the millionth time, and I finally listen, scrambling into the front passenger seat, tucking the lap belt beneath my baby bump without making it too obvious. Twice more, he attempts to climb the hill, only for the truck to inch backward. “We’re not getting up this hill,” he says, angling the truck off the road on the snowygrass, the truck leaning precariously into the ditch that runs parallel.
Elliott lets the engine idle as he drops his head back with his phone held to his ear. He repeatedly redials his brother, but none of his calls will go through. Next, he tries Marigold’s husband, Davis, who also works at BT. Same thing happens.
“What do we do now?” I ask before looking back to check on the kids, finding tears in their eyes and frightful expressions.
“We’ll have to leave the truck here until the snow melts or we can get it towed.” Buttoning his flannel up to his throat and flipping his collar up, he says, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He throws open the door and shuts it quickly. Sticking to the grass, he jogs up and over the hill out of sight.
* * *
Growing worried the longer we have to wait, I let loose a squeak of relief when Elliott steps out of a blocky, vintage brown Bronco with huge tires that he parks beside the eighteen-wheeler. With snow crowning his head and shoulders, he hurriedly climbs into his driver’s side seat.
“The warehouse is closed. Davis left this for me,” he says, passing me a folded piece of printer paper before ducking into the back of the cab to start unbuckling the kids from their seats. “The state’s power grid is failing, so phone service is out. Davis and Goldie are staying with friends after a pipe froze and burst in their kitchen. Don’t know how long it’ll be before they can get it repaired and move back home.”
My heart sinks as I read the apology note, hastily scrawled in unfamiliar chicken-scratch handwriting, confirming what Elliott said. No power, no running water, and no room for us at their friend’s house.
“Where are we supposed to go?” I ask, shoving the note in my pocket.
Elliott plops Kendall on my lap with a tired sigh. “We’ll put the car seats in the Bronco, and I’ll drive y’all over to my brother’s place, since they have more beds to spare.”
I have no choice but to go along with it, hoping it won’t be too awkward staying with and relying on more strangers for who knows how long. Elliott asks me to stay in the truck with the kids while he unbolts and transfers the car seats and our bags to his Bronco with great, big body shivers and ice forming on his mustache.
After slamming his trunk closed with the last of our things, Elliott finally cuts off the truck’s engine. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I answer, buttoning up against the cold while we hurry to strap the kids into the Bronco that he left idling with the heat on full blast. My knuckles turn white as I grip the handle hanging from the Bronco’s ceiling above the passenger window and tamp down my fear that we’re going to wreck when Elliott’s tires slip a few times after pulling away from the ditch.
Time passes painfully slow again while the sun sets, and a blanket of darkness settles over the land without any stars or lights flickering in the distance. There’s nothing but the black and dense, sinister woods instead of the vast, empty desert, nor any of the massive, ultra-bright neon signs I’m used to in Vegas. It’s perfect.
Elliott
Just a few feet past the hidden gravel turn-off to my cabin, I have to throw my right arm out across Birdie’s chest to stop her from lurching forward in the passenger seat when the back end of the Bronco swings out after hitting a patch of black ice invisible in my headlights.
“It’s ok, you’re ok,” I say, reluctantly dropping my arm and steering the Bronco over. “Change of plans. Gonna back up and take y’all to my cabin. My brother’s property borders mine on the left side, and I’ll run through in the morning to check on him and his wife.”
“Why not tonight?” she asks with a hand over her heart, taking deep breaths to calm herself.
“It’s a long trek through the woods on foot. Too dark and dangerous for you and the kids, especially with the ice. ‘Sides, I have a generator for power if mine is out. With my setup, we shouldn’t have to worry about burst pipes or losing water either.”
With Birdie’s nod of acceptance, I steer the Bronco onto the gravel, which isn’t nearly as slick as the roads, and make the half-mile journey through the trees to my cabin. The Bronco dips in a pit in the gravel that I’ve been meaning to fill in as I swerve left around the one-story wooden structure with its pitched roof and bottom border of natural gray and brown stones to pull in behind the new-to-me midnight blue Bronco I’m restoring. It’s parked beneath the carport attached to the shed where I keep my tools, spare car parts, and my collection of handy shovels.
I step out of the Bronco first, cocking my head to the side, listening for anything that might be lurking nearby. But it’sa quiet night, the small creek on the right side of the cabin frozen solid and no longer babbling. Satisfied that nothing and no one is watching us from the shadows, I motion for Birdie to hop out with the kids. I know my way in the dark, but for their sake, I shine the flashlight on my phone across the large stone paver walkway and up the four wooden steps to the covered back deck while keeping Kendall bundled to my chest since she’s the smallest and most susceptible to the cold.
“Yup, power’s out,” I say unnecessarily when we step through the back door into the kitchen, flipping the light switch up and down a few times. The cabin remains cold, dark, and somewhat stale, needing to be aired out after five weeks on the road.
I show Birdie, Sydney, and Dustin to the wood-paneled living room just past the L-shaped kitchen of original wood cabinetry. While the older kids collapse on the seventies tweed sofa I should have replaced long ago, I pass Kendall to her mama, who sits in my dark brown leather rocking recliner. After throwing several spare blankets on top of them to keep them warm, I pop into the shed to stow some of the cargo that will need to be burned and buried and retrieve my gas generator. It provides a steady thrum of background noise as soon as I get it hooked up to the cabin, running almost as loud as the diesel engine in my truck.
Dead tired but still putting one foot in front of the other, I bring our bags and leftover food inside last, dropping them on the round, eat-in kitchen table with its four wooden chairs.I’ll have to build a matching high chair for Kendall and get booster seats for Sydney and Dustin. My spine goes ramrod straight as soon as that thought crosses my mind, and I shove it out of my head, slamming my mental walls down.
Dustin jumps up to pick through the remaining food for a snack. Something I’ve learned over the past few days is no matter how much the boy eats, he’s never full…just like his papa.
Damnit. So much for those mental walls of mine.
“Are you super rich?” Dustin asks me through a mouthful of potato chips, eyes wide as he does a slow circle, observing everything.
It’s the last thing I expected him to ask as I eye my place, seeing it for what it is—just an old, mostly bare cabin out in the sticks. But also, I realize with a flicker of pride, a standalone, three-bedroom retreat, set miles apart from my closest neighbors, with recently resanded and stained original hardwood floors, clean except for the dust that has settled since I’ve been gone. And best of all, quiet. So very quiet. Vastly different from their apartment.
“Dustin!” Birdie hisses, standing and tucking Kendall under the blankets with Sydney. “It’s rude to ask people about money.”
